Search Results for: environmental/page/37/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Equal Marriage U.S. Style, Religious Harassment & Where is That Rendition Report – The Human Rights Roundup

7 April 2013 by Daniel Isenberg

Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular smorgasbord of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.

A relatively quiet week on the news front, with courts having a well-earned Easter break.  Just a few items to focus on, with commentary appearing following the US Supreme Court’s oral hearing on the same-sex marriage.  The Employment Tribunal has found that conference motions and debates surrounding Israeli boycotts do not constitute anti-Semitism; and assistance is out there for litigants in person following the enactment of LASPO.

by Daniel Isenberg

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Latest Law Pod UK: Care orders and newborn babies

29 July 2021 by Rosalind English

In the second of their series of family law podcasts, Clare Ciborowska and Richard Ager of 1 Crown Office Row Brighton discuss the vexed area of care proceedings where it is considered necessary to take a baby away from its mother for the infant’s safety. The law on newborns is pretty thin and the social worker practice varies from area to area. Earlier this year the Public Law Working group published a series of recommendations for improvements in practice to make the whole procedure less traumatic for the mother. See Recommendations to achieve best practice in the child protection and family justice systems Final Report (March 2021) Whether these recommendations will be implemented remains to be seen.

The ability to make interim care orders under s.38 Children Act 1989 is one of the family court’s most significant powers. With newborn babies, prompt action is not only desirable, it’s essential. But not so easy to achieve in practice, as you will hear from our lively and comprehensive conversation.

This episode will be the last before we take our August break, but plans for Law Pod UK from September are already being hatched so remember to tune in!

Law Pod UK is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Player FM,  ListenNotes, Podbean, iHeart, Radio Public, Deezer  or wherever you listen to our podcasts. 

Please remember to rate and review us if you like what you hear.

The Weekly Round-Up: unlawful care home policies, new legislation and voter ID

2 May 2022 by Matthew Johnson

In the news:

Last week saw an influx of legislation approved before Parliament’s Thursday end-of-session deadline. Some include:

• The Nationality and Borders Act. Three of the most controversial provisions are: to allow asylum claims to be handled at overseas facilities (offshoring asylum); criminalising those who knowingly arrive in the UK illegally; and treating asylum seekers differently depending on how they enter the UK.
• The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. Another turbulent journey to Royal Assent, this grants police extra powers to quash disruptive demonstrations. This is done by increasing restrictions on protests where ‘noise’ could cause ‘serious disruption’, and by criminalising activity which causes ‘serious distress, serious annoyance or serious inconvenience’ without ‘reasonable excuse’.
• The Judicial Review and Courts Act. This was passed after a last-minute amendment proposed by the Law Society to remove a statutory presumption. The presumption would have dictated to judges what remedies they could award in place of judicial discretion.
• The Elections Act. This requires voters to present photo ID at polling stations, justified by the government as making the electoral system ‘secure, transparent and fair for generations to come’. However, there is a fear this could see many would-be voters turned away.

An independent review by Jonathan Hall QC has concluded that terrorists in prison ‘enjoy high status’ within a culture of fear and violence across English and Welsh jails. The review details examples of ‘Islamic gang-like activity’, exacerbated by the 27% cut in staff between 2010 and 2017. A separate report by Hall also discovered that the Government does not keep a record, ‘officially or unofficially’, of the number of prosecuted terrorists returning to the UK from Syria.

In other news:

• Insulate Britain have followed up on their threats last week to disrupt hearings by glueing themselves to magistrates court furniture. Dr Diana Warner superglued her hand to the glass dock and ignored court instructions, instead paying tribute to the activist who died after setting himself on fire outside the US Supreme Court.

• Victims of sexual offences are subject to the longest waiting period on record, with an average of 9 months for cases to go through Crown Courts. Data also demonstrates that the speed of cases depends on their location, with cases in Leicester taking the longest to complete (on average 15 months).

Weekly round-up: Dominic Raab resignation, Fox news settlement, love-bombing.

24 April 2023 by Hal McNulty

Dominic Raab has resigned as deputy prime minister after a bullying inquiry vindicated a number of civil servants’ claims about his behaviour as a minister in the cabinets of Boris Johnson and Theresa May. The report of Andrew Tolley KC held that Raab’s behaviour constituted an “abuse or misuse of power,” citing instances of an intimidating and discouraging attitude towards the civil servants he worked with. Tolley referred to the ruling of the High Court in the 2021 case concerning the behaviour of Priti Patel towards civil servants, in which it was provided that harassment and bullying through intimidating and insulting behaviour were not consistent with the Ministerial Code. In his resignation letter, Raab said that Tolley’s findings were “flawed and set a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government … it will encourage spurious complaints against ministers.”   

The lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News was settled before trial with a $786.5m pay-out. The voting machines company alleged that Fox news presenters knowingly made false claims that it had rigged the 2020 presidential election result for Biden, while the news corporation framed their defence as a protection of free speech. To win at trial, Dominion’s claims faced a high bar: they would have had to prove that Fox’s statements were made in ‘actual malice,’ meaning either the corporation knowingly made the false statements or acted with reckless disregard for their falsity. Documents released to the public revealed the commercial pressures on executives and presenters to appeal to pro-Trump viewers. Commentators suggest Fox owner Rupert Murdoch wanted to avoid cross-examination of himself and his news stars at trial. The news company still faces a similar lawsuit from voting technology company, Smartmatic, which released a statement claiming that “Fox needed a villain. Without any true villain, defendants invented one.”

The Weekly Round-up: Braverman, the 14th Amendment, CPS “cherry-picking”

22 May 2023 by Hal McNulty

In the news

Rishi Sunak is expected to be consulting his ethics adviser over allegations that Suella Braverman mishandled a speeding offence charge. The Home Secretary is alleged to have attempted to arrange a private speed awareness course for an offence committed in the summer of 2022, rather than accept three points on her license and a fine or, alternatively, attending a course as part of a group of offenders. She reportedly consulted civil servants and a political advisor about the special arrangements. Sir Philip Rycroft, a former Permanent Secretary, commented that the actions appeared to be a “real lapse of judgment.” Kier Starmer has called for the Prime Minister to sack his minister if she is found to have breached the Ministerial Code. Braverman lost her position as home secretary under Liz Truss for a breach of the Code involving the transfer of official documents through her private email.

Football “rioter” Garry Mann loses Euro human rights appeal

23 February 2011 by Adam Wagner

Garry Norman MANN v Portugual and the United Kingdom – 360/10 [2011] ECHR 337 (1 February 2011) – Read judgment

Garry Mann, a football fan who was convicted to two years in a Portuguese jail for rioting after an England match in 2004, has lost his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his conviction and extradition.

Mann has always denied taking part in the riot. The full background to the case is set out here. The case has been subject to a number of court hearings in the UK, including two judicial review hearings against his proposed extradition to Portugal to serve his prison sentence. He has also already had a claim in the European court rejected.

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The Supreme Court on harassment: purpose and rationality

20 March 2013 by David Hart KC

Hayes v. Willoughby, Supreme Court, 20 March 2013 – read judgment

Harassment is both a civil wrong and a crime. It is a statutory defence to both that the conduct “was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime” s.1(3) Protection of Harassment Act 1997.  This decision grappled with the problem of the apparently honest but irrational harasser. Was he guilty or did this defence help him?  In answering this, the Supreme Court looked at some basic concepts running through great swathes of the law, “purpose”, “subjective”, “objective”, “reasonableness” and, critically, “rationality” – so the case is one not simply for harassment lawyers to look at.

 
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Apocalypse soon? The UK without the European Convention on Human Rights

17 May 2013 by Jim Duffy

Updated, 19 May 2013 | Last night, lawyers, academics, NGOs and even the President of the Supreme Court gathered in a basement conference room in central London.  Their purpose was to discuss the UK “without Convention Rights”, a possible future that some might view as post-apocalyptic, and others as utopia.  Either way, given recent political developments, the event could not, in the words of the Chair, Lord Dyson, “be more timely or topical.”

The seminar was hosted by city law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and presented by the Human Rights Lawyers Association and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.  Lord Dyson, who is the Master of the Rolls (the second most senior judge in England and Wales), introduced three speakers:

• David Anderson QC, the Government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation since 2011;
• Professor András Sajó, the Hungarian Judge at the European Court of Human Rights; and
• Professor Hugh Corder, Professor of Public Law at the University of Cape Town.

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Dolan’s latest lockdown defeat

3 December 2020 by Rosalind English

Dolan & Ors, R (On the application of) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care & Anor [2020] EWCA 1605

I wrote about the launch of these proceedings earlier this year (Legal Challenge to Lockdown) where Mr Dolan was refused permission to appeal the refusal of his application for judicial review. (see Dominic Ruck Keene’s post on that decision). Since then UKHRB has been covering this and similar challenges closely: see here and here, as well as alerting our readers to cases in other countries: New Zealand, and South Africa. My recent post on “vaccine hesitancy” and proposals for mandatory Covid-19 vaccines has attracted a considerable number of readers and comments.

Getting back to the case in hand, this latest defeat for Dolan’s team is slightly more complicated. The Court of Appeal’s ruling can be summarised briefly, but anyone wanting to be reminded of the details will do well to go back to Emmet Coldrick’s enlightening series on the earlier stages of this case and the arguments raised by the appellants in Part 1 and Part 2.

Electric shock collar ban has bite

19 July 2011 by Rosalind English

When the Welsh Assembly voted to ban the use of the electronic training collar, which works by emitting an electric stimulus when the dog goes near a forbidden object like a fence, the main opponents of the ban the Electronic Collar Manufacturers’ Association were quick to take judicial review proceedings against the Welsh lawmakers.

They alleged that the ban was in breach of Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to enjoyment of possessions and property) and the prohibitions in Articles 34 and 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which prohibit restrictions to free trade.

They were unsuccessful in their bid to disqualify the ban and we posted an analysis of the case and the issues it raised. Since this post has attracted over three thousand hits since its publication, we feel it only right to follow it up with this story of the first prosecution under the ban.
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South Africa’s President Zuma survives impeachment vote despite judgment against him

6 April 2016 by Rosalind English

Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker of the National Assembly, President Jacob Zuma and Public Protector Case CCT 143/15; Democratic Alliance v Speaker of the National Assembly, President Jacob Zuma, Minister of Police, Public Protector with Corruption Watch as Amicus Curiae – Case CCT 171/15 (31 March 2016) – read judgment

The Constitutional Court of South Africa last week handed down a damning judgement against the ruling head of the African National Party (the ANC). Despite this judgment, parliament voted not to impeach him.  The ANC defeated the opposition-sponsored motion, saying Mr Zuma was not guilty of “serious misconduct”.

See University of Cape Town law professor Richard Calland’s article on the consequences of this ruling for President Zuma.

Background to the Constitutional Court proceedings

The Public Protector is an institution set up under the South African Constitution to ensure good governance and “strengthen constitutional democracy in the Republic”. She investigated allegations of improper conduct or irregular expenditure relating to the security upgrades at President Zuma’s Nkandla private residence, and she concluded that the President failed to act in line with certain of his constitutional and ethical obligations by knowingly deriving undue benefit from the irregular deployment of State resources. Exercising her constitutional powers to take appropriate remedial action she directed that the President, duly assisted by certain State functionaries, should work out and pay a portion fairly proportionate to the undue benefit that had accrued to him and his family. Added to this was that he should reprimand the Ministers involved in that project, for specified improprieties.

For well over a year, neither the President nor the National Assembly did what they were required to do in terms of the remedial action. Therefore the EFF and the DA took these applications agains the National Assembly and the President, arguing that the President should be ordered to comply with the remedial action.
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Deportation of foreign criminals: the new immigration rules are a “complete code”

9 October 2013 by Rosalind English

MF (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 1192 – read judgment

In what circumstances can a foreign criminal resist deportation on the basis of his right to family life under Article 8 of the Convention? Until 2012 this question was governed entirely by judge-made case law. Then rules 398, 399 and 399A  were introduced into the Immigration Rules HC 395.  I have posted previously on the interpretation of these rules here and here.

The rules introduced for the first time a set of criteria by reference to which the impact of Article 8 in criminal deportation cases was to be assessed. The intention of the legislature in introducing these rules was to state how the balance should be struck between the public interest and  the individual right to family life:

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US ten years behind Britain on gay soldiers

20 December 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated | Following the US Senate’s vote to repeal the ban on gay soldiers serving in the US military, it is interesting to compare the situation in the British Army, where gay soldiers have been allowed to serve since 2000.

The UK government was in fact forced to change its policy following a series of court rulings, as the US government might have been if the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy had made it to the Supreme Court, which was looking inevitable before the Senate vote.

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Disabled challenge to bedroom tax fails

31 July 2013 by Rosalind English

MA and others (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Ors [2013] EWHC 2213 (QB) (30 July 2013) – read judgment

The High Court has unanimously dismissed an application for a declaration that the so-called “bedroom tax” discriminates unlawfully against disabled claimants.

The arguments

This was a challenge by way of judicial review to regulations that came into force last year, reducing the amount of housing benefits by reference to the number of bedrooms permitted by the relevant statute (the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 ).  These new rules, which have applied to claimants of housing benefit since April 2013, restrict housing benefit to allow for one bedroom for each person or couple living as part of the household. Discretionary housing payments are available for certain qualifying individuals to mitigate the effect of the new rules, in particular the effects on disabled people and those with foster caring responsibilities.
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UK not doing enough to combat human trafficking and domestic slavery

28 November 2012 by Alasdair Henderson

C.N. v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – 4239/08 – HEJUD [2012] ECHR 1911 – read judgment here.

The European Court of Human Rights recently held that the UK was in breach of Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to have specific legislation in place which criminalised domestic slavery. 

Thankfully Article 4 cases (involving slavery and forced labour) are rare in the UK. Indeed this is only the fifth post on this blog about Article 4, which perhaps shows just how few and far between they are, and the UK has a proud history of seeking to prevent slavery. Although British merchants and traders, to their great shame, played a major part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade throughout the 1600s and 1700s, Britain was then at the forefront of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery from 1807 onwards and the common law has always considered slavery to be abhorrent (as the famous case of ex parte Somersett in 1772 made clear).

Tragically, however, slavery has not been consigned to the history books. Across the world new forms of slavery are prevalent. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are a minimum of 12.3 million people in forced labour worldwide, and one particular form of modern slavery – human trafficking –  is one of the fastest-growing forms of human rights abuse. The UK, as a major destination country for trafficking victims, is not immune from this trend.

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